The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray

440 Pages·1988·7.584 MB·English

by  Abraham Ascher

The Revolution of 1905

Abraham Ascher
THE
REVOLUTION
OF 1905
Russia in Disarray
★
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 1988 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
Published with the support of the
National Endowment for the Humanities,
an independent federal agency
CIP data appear at the end of the book
Original printing 1988
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94
Stanford University Press publications are distrib­
uted exclusively by Stanford University Press with
in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; they
are distributed exclusively by Cambridge
University Press throughout the rest of the world.
To My Father
JAKOB ASCHER

Acknowledgments
In writing this book I received support and help from
many institutions and individuals, and I should like to express my appre­
ciation to them. Financial support from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Hoover In­
stitution on War, Revolution, and Peace, the Earhart Foundation, and
the Research Foundation of the City University of New York made pos­
sible research trips to archives in the United States and Europe and en­
abled me to take time off from teaching. I was cordially received in vari­
ous archives, all of which readily made available to me documents
relevant to my subject: the Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres
in Paris, the Public Record Office in London, the Haus-Hof-und-Staats-
archiv in Vienna, the Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amts in Bonn,
the Hoover Institution, and the International Institute for Social History
in Amsterdam. The National Archives in Washington, D.C., promptly
sent me microfilms of diplomatic dispatches I requested. Librarians at
Columbia University, the New York Public Library, and the library of the
Graduate School of the City University of New York responded gra­
ciously to all my requests for books* pamphlets, and newspapers. The
four summers I spent at the Slavonic Library of Helsinki University were
especially profitable. I appreciate the courteous and efficient help of the
staff and am particularly grateful to Ms. Paivi Paloposki, whose efforts
in my behalf were beyond the call of duty.
I am grateful to all my friends who read the manuscript (or parts of it)
and gave me the benefit of their thoughtful criticisms: Julian Franklin,
Paula Franklin, John Keep, Guenter Lewy, Allen McConnell, Marc Raeff,
and Richard Stites. Reginald E. Zelnik scrutinized the work with remark­
able care and saved me from many mistakes and oversimplifications. J. G.
Bell, Editor of Stanford University Press, not only encouraged me in this
viii Acknowledgments
project from the very beginning of my work, but read the manuscript
with his usual discernment; his spirited suggestions helped me to improve
the book in many ways. Peter Kahn was in every way an ideal Copy editor.
He has a fine sense of style and an astute grasp of complicated historio­
graphical issues; his close reading of the manuscript resulted in improve­
ments in form and substance.
I especially want to thank my wife, Anna, who over the years sup­
ported me in more ways than I can express here. Her patience and en­
couragement lifted my spirits at moments when I felt overwhelmed by
the complexity and scope of the project. Despite her own very busy
schedule, she read the manuscript with extraordinary thoroughness and
acuity. The final version owes much to her high standards of style and
intellectual rigor. I suspect that our children, Deborah, Rachel, and Ste­
phen, were exposed to more details about the Revolution of 1905 than
could possibly have interested them, but they were always cheerful and
indulgent toward my preoccupation with Russian history. Stephen even
did a draft of the manuscript on the word processor before I had learned
how to operate the computer, and I am pleased that the experience has
had some influence on the direction of his own studies.
Although the book has benefited greatly from the help and advice of
my family, friends, and editors, 1 myself am, of course, responsible for its
shortcomings.
A.A.
Contents
A Note to the Reader xi
Introduction i
Part I The Old Regime Under Siege
1. The Fragmented Society n
2. War and Political Upheaval 43
3. Gapon and Bloody Sunday 74
4. The Government Flounders 102
Part II The Assault on Authority
5. Civil Disorder and Labor Unrest 127
6. Minorities, Peasants, Soldiers, and Sailors 152
7. The Failure of Reform 175
Part III Revolution and Reaction
8. The General Strike 211
9. Concessions Endangered 243
10. The Days of Liberty 275
11. Armed Uprising and Counterrevolution 304
Conclusion 337
Notes 349 Bibliography 383 Index 399
Twelve pages of illustrations follow p. 144